So, he drove to Gatsby’s in Cherry
Hill, just one of a wide variety of gay bars tucked discreetly in the suburbs
at the time. There was the Lark in Bridgeport, for instance, and the CR Bar was
in Upper Darby. New Hope had three.

No more. Suburban gay bars have all
but disappeared. New Hope supports only one gay bar now, the Raven.

The decline reflects major shifts in
American attitudes – among both gay and straight people – and the emergence of
online sites for dating and hooking up.

It also illuminates the obsolete
business model of the traditional gay bar. Simply having a gay clientele is not
enough and has not been for a long time.

“Those were our ghetto
bars,” Mark Segal, publisher of the Philadelphia Gay News, said of some of
the windowless places in the suburbs. “We were stuck there. Today we’re
not stuck. Our dollars are welcomed everywhere.”

He added: “There was a time
when a gay couple could only go to the gay bars in New Hope. Can you imagine
today a couple not feeling comfortable going to almost any bar there?”

In 2007, Entrepreneur magazine
listed gay bars – along with newspapers and record stores – among 10 businesses
facing extinction in 10 years. “The very best of them will endure; the
rest won’t,” the magazine wrote.

In 2011, Slate magazine noted a 12.5
percent decrease in the number of gay bars nationwide since 2005.

Brett Bumgarner, who is writing his
dissertation on how gay men meet, said gay bars are perceived less as singles
places now, their original purpose replaced by cellphone applications such as
Grindr that signal users when another interested gay man is nearby.

“A lot of people I know have
talked about feeling uncomfortable because someone 40 years their senior is aggressively
flirting with them,” said Bumgarner, 28, who studies at the University of
Pennsylvania. “I think that’s what has attracted people to non-gay bars
now.”

Younger people in particular – both
gay and straight – are more interested in mixed settings. Straight bars, for
instance, are offering gay nights.

Suburban gay bars also have had to
compete with Philadelphia, an increasingly safer and younger city with a
thriving “Gayborhood” that allows folks to bar hop.

“It’s very difficult for the
suburban bar to compete with the city,” said Malcolm Lazin, executive
director of the Equality Forum. “When you go to a smaller bar (in the
suburbs), it’s probably less interesting, less upscale, has fewer people and
the same people.”

Bob
Skiba, director of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) archive at
the William Way Center in Philadelphia, said gay bars date to the 19th century
in Philadelphia. They proliferated with speakeasies in the 1920s. Their numbers
rose again after World War II when an entertainment district sprouted along
13th Street and Locust.

In the 1970s, ownership of these
bars shifted from underworld types, who often paid off police, to gay
proprietors. More suburban bars opened up around this time, Skiba said. They
included Andy’s in Chester and the Lamplighter in Camden. January’s was on a
farm near New Hope. Marcus Hook had three bars: Captain Jack’s, Paradise, and
George’s.

The 1996 edition of Gayellow Pages
advertised the Lark in Bridgeport and the CR Bar in Upper Darby. New Hope still
had the Cartwheel, Prelude, and the Raven. Gatsby’s was still around. Trenton
had Buddies, Casa Lito, and Club 21.

Ralston, who came to Gatsbys in the
early 1990s, said he knew no one when he walked in.

“Everybody was very interesting
looking,” he said. “There were drag queens. A lot of weird people. A
lot of nice-looking people. It was fun.”

He added: “For me, the gay bar
was the support system, which is sad to say. But it was.”

Some of the bars provided “a
sense of family that comforted whatever stage of gay life you were going
through,” said John Glenstrup, a former bartender at Upper Darby’s CR Bar,
a windowless place on Market Street.

A lot of his regulars did not feel
safe in Philadelphia in the 1980s. But many people have grown older or moved
back to the city, he said.

The suburban bars started to die out
in the 1990s. Most were gone, except for the Raven, by the mid 2000s, although
not necessarily for business reasons. The Cartwheel in New Hope caught fire.
The Lark, on Dekalb Street in Bridgeport, fell victim to a bridge expansion.
But these businesses were not replaced.

Philadelphia’s gay bars, on the
other hand, have maintained a steady presence since the 1990s. Gentrification
had swept away places on either end of South Street and north of Market, where
black gay bars once existed, said Skiba, the archivist. But the Gayborhood,
along 13th Street, has thrived because of the community’s strong political and
business associations, Skiba said.

Terrence Meck, who owned the Raven
in the mid-2000s with his late partner, Rand Harlan Skolnick, said a strong
market still exists for gay bars. But owners cannot assume they have a built-in
clientele.

“Our most successful weeks at
the Raven were when we offered something different for various crowds each
night of the week,” Meck said. “Just having a hot bartender isn’t
going to pay your bills and keep you thriving anymore.”

The Beagle Tavern opened in
Norristown in 2010. It’s a neighborhood-type pub that sells crab cakes and
Caprese salad. The front patio looks out onto East Main Street. The door
displays a rainbow sticker the size of a playing card.

“It’s a gay bar,” said the
owner, Billy Frank. “But I wanted to make it an alternative bar for all
walks of life, like for the misfit toys of Christmas. It’s for whoever walks
in.”

The Beagle has drag nights. And it’s
where Tamara Davis and Nicola Cucinotta came to celebrate last week after
getting their marriage licenses from Montgomery County’s register of wills. But
the bar has a mixed staff and clientele.

Michelle Dorsey, 38, said it’s a
place where she can bring her girlfriend – and her girlfriend’s 68-year-old
mother.

“I don’t have to go to a gay
bar,” Dorsey said. “I can be affectionate with a woman on a SEPTA
bus. I just want to go somewhere I want to be.”

Caption 1: ADVANCE FOR WEEKEND
EDITIONS AUG. 3-4 – In this July 25, 2013 photo, bartender Samantha Moyer,
greets friend and customer, Allyson Farmer, right, and Jerome L. Waddle, left
on the outdoor deck area at the Beagle Tavern in Norristown, Pa. Suburban gay
bars have all but disappeared. The decline reflects major shifts in American
attitudes – among both gay and straight people – and the emergence of online
sites for dating and hooking up. (AP Photo/The Philadelphia Inquirer, Charles
Fox) MAGS OUT; NEWARK OUT

Caption 2: ADVANCE FOR WEEKEND
EDITIONS AUG. 3-4 – In this July 25, 2013 photo, Liz Moore bar manager at the
Beagle Tavern in Norristown, Pa. serves drinks. Suburban gay bars have all but
disappeared. The decline reflects major shifts in American attitudes – among
both gay and straight people – and the emergence of online sites for dating and
hooking up. (AP Photo/The Philadelphia Inquirer, Charles Fox) MAGS OUT; NEWARK
OUT